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Gigi is a startup that aims to make it easier for brands to buy and measure streaming video ads with Amazon. The firm also provides advertisers with granular metrics like the incremental reach of a TV ad campaign, Epstein said. AdvertisementAs third-party cookies go away, Gigi's pitch plays up brands' first-party data to create more effective Amazon ads. For example, a Shopify merchant can analyze data from their Shopify website with Amazon data to find audiences to target with ads. Gigi wants to work with agenciesThe bulk of Amazon ads are bought using traditional shopper marketing dollars, but Epstein said that his firm is squarely focusing on TV ad budgets.
Persons: , Gigi, Adam Epstein, Epstein, Gigi Gigi Gigi, Omnicom, Capital, adtech execs, Mike Baker, Rosco Hill Organizations: Service, Amazon, Business, Amazon's, Wall, Amazon Marketing, AMC, Ascential, Ascential's, Golden Ventures, AperiamVentures Locations: Rosco
Some venture capitalists are trying to change the equation and are backing minority founders to help them scale their companies and create jobs within their communities. The largest cities that lack any LGBTQ+ founders are Orlando, Florida; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Birmingham, Alabama. One organization trying such solutions is Chasing Rainbows, a venture capital fund that works with LGBTQ+ founders to connect them with capital. Stokes said the LGBTQ+ community historically has experienced some form of discrimination when trying to access these types of services. An angel investor himself, Stokes founded Chasing Rainbows in 2021 after recognizing that underrepresented founders are seen as riskier investments.
Persons: Charlotte ,, Brian Richardson, Richardson, Ben Stokes, Stokes, outsized, Bill No Organizations: Gallup, CNBC, StartOut, University of California Locations: StartOut's State, San Francisco , New York, Los Angeles, Denver, Austin , Texas, Orlando , Florida, Charlotte, Charlotte , North Carolina, Birmingham , Alabama, Texas, North Carolina, Alabama, Massachusetts, New York, California, Berkeley
Dove didn't have much time to grieve, though. "I pushed back because I didn't think it was rewarding. I didn't think I would feel like I was contributing to society in a meaningful way as an investor," Dove said. Dove didn't want to work even more hours, which would force her to sacrifice time with her kids, so she made more with less. "Although we have not hit our FI number yet, we will reach our target amount by our target date with just what we contribute from my husband's income," Dove said.
Persons: , Chris Elle Dove, Dove, hadn't, Berkshire Hathaway, I've, they've, they're, we've, Dove didn't, Rivian Organizations: Service, Business, FIRE, Social Security, Berkshire, Farm Locations: Western Illinois, Bloomington , Illinois
Read previewProofs, a startup that builds software using AI agents, has raised $2.6 million in pre-seed funding. The startup, based in San Francisco and Warsaw, is utilizing AI to speed up the process of developing proof-of-concept software for companies. This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Proof claims that using AI agents can drastically reduce the time taken to develop custom software to minutes at a much-reduced cost compared to traditional processes. Advertisement"Every year you have around $700 billion of software being sold, but unlike out-of-the-box SaaS products, the bar to build and integrate customized software is higher," Pucek told Business Insider.
Persons: , Bartek, Pucek Organizations: Service, Business, EarlyBird, Expeditions Fund, RTP Global Locations: San Francisco, Warsaw
AI startup Decagon builds AI agents to automate customer support for enterprise customers. Founded in July 2023, Decagon uses generative AI to automate customer support for enterprise customers. The company has emerged from stealth and raised $35 million in funding for its seed and Series A rounds. Accel led the company's $30 million Series A, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, A*, and Elad Gil. A16z led the company's $5 million seed round.
Persons: Andreessen Horowitz, , Jesse Zhang, Ashwin Sreenivas, Zhang, Elad Gil, A16z, Decagon, Aaron Levie, Howie Liu Organizations: Accel, Service, Decagon, Business
Kushner started Affinity in 2021, shortly after leaving his advisory role in the White House alongside his wife, Ivanka Trump. Neumann, who was ultimately ousted from WeWork by top SoftBank execs, introduced Kushner to Unybrands early the following year. Affinity's investment in Unybrands, which hasn't previously been reported, was one of the private equity firm's earliest deals. Following a continued slide, the company laid off roughly 10% of its staff in November 2022, according to people familiar with the matter. The House Oversight Committee launched an investigation into the investment in 2022, looking into whether Kushner's financial interests influenced Trump's foreign policy.
Persons: Jared Kushner, Alex Brandon, Kushner, Weeks, Ivanka Trump, Trump, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Jamal Khashoggi, WeWork, Adam Neumann, Neumann, Unybrands, hasn't, , Catterton, Jason Somerville, Somerville, it's, didn't, headcount, Donald Trump, Gary Cohn, Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, Jonathan Ernst, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Carolyn Maloney, Ron Wyden, Kushner didn't, Ulrich Kratz, Goldman Sachs, Kratz, Kushner's, Ian Brekke, Asad Naqvi, Bret Pearlman, Roger McNamee, Max Fink, Neumann's, Brekke, Naqvi, Pearlman, Fink, Shahar Azran, Eugen Miropolski, Robyn Laguette, Mark Goldfinger, Joe Biden, Lex, Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman, Ye, I've Organizations: U.S . Capitol, Capitol, Reuters, Affinity Partners, Companies, White House, Affinity, Saudi Crown, Unybrands, WeWork, CNBC, Amazon, BlackRock, Khosla Ventures, GW Partners, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, United Arab, Saudi Arabia's, Crown, Ritz Carlton Hotel, Saudi, Republicans, Crayhill Capital Management, Barclays, Goldman, Kushner, Investments II, Blackstone, Partners, Financial Services, CNBC it's, Israeli American Council, IAC, Getty, Kanye Locations: Washington, Amazon's, South Florida, Miami, Silicon Valley, Saudi, Saudi Arabia, Unybrands, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Riyadh, Yemen, American, Austin , Texas, Gulf, Israel
Many healthcare startups have targeted administrative tasks on the provider side, like SmarterDx, which just raised a $50 million Series B in June. Wu said NEA chose to invest in Anterior in part because of its focus on health plans. Anterior's $20 million Series A will help the startup accelerate hiring to take on more health plan customers, Mahmoud said. Wu said the firm sees a big opportunity for Anterior to package a range of tools for health plans as AI technologies become more widespread. See the 18-slide pitch deck Anterior used to grab a $20 million Series A.
Persons: , It's, Mustafa Suleyman, Adrian Aoun, Blake Wu, Abdel Mahmoud, we'd, we've, Mahmoud, Wu, Anterior's Organizations: Service, NEA, Business, Sequoia, Lion, Microsoft, Cohere, Meta, Google, McKinsey & Company, Amazon Locations: Sequoia Arc
Read previewThis is an as-told-to conversation with Molly Cantillon, a Stanford dropout and founder of NOX, a personalized AI assistant. NOX, the personal AI assistant I built, was created to fill that void. I'm building NOX to help people like me stay saneI initially built NOX as a hardware solution in June 2023. In some sense, I'm building NOX to help people like me stay sane. Some might say we're a group of college dropout nobodies gunning after a crown jewel: A personalized AI assistant.
Persons: , Molly Cantillon, hadn't, It'll, Reilly Opelka, Aayush, nobodies gunning, It's, We're Organizations: Service, Stanford, Business, Tennis Locations: Palo Alto
Read previewThis is an as-told-to conversation with Molly Cantillon, a Stanford dropout and founder of NOX, a personalized AI assistant. NOX, the personal AI assistant I built, was created to fill that void. I'm building NOX to help people like me stay saneI initially built NOX as a hardware solution in June 2023. In some sense, I'm building NOX to help people like me stay sane. Some might say we're a group of college dropout nobodies gunning after a crown jewel: A personalized AI assistant.
Persons: , Molly Cantillon, hadn't, It'll, Reilly Opelka, Aayush, nobodies gunning, It's, We're Organizations: Service, Stanford, Business, Tennis Locations: Palo Alto, heynox.com
Read previewPro League Network has raised $2.2 million to commercialize niche sports like slapfighting, CarJitsu, and streetball, and allow people to bet on them. This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Advertisement"We're solving a problem," Yucatonis told Business Insider. "The portfolio appeals to them because they're placing a bet on different properties," Salvaris said. Business Insider has viewed the full version.
Persons: , Mike Salvaris, Bill Yucatonis, Yucatonis, Roger Ehrenberg, Chris Grove, Kevin Garnett, Salvaris, PLN, it's Organizations: Service, League, Business Locations: Missouri, East
Crosby Health just raised $2.2 million in seed funding led by Amplo Ventures. The startup is building a large language model to help providers track insurance appeals. We got an exclusive look at the eight-slide pitch deck the startup used to raise its seed round. download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . Crosby Health, an AI startup building a clinical, large language model to help healthcare providers track insurance appeals, recently announced it raised $2.2 million in seed funding led by Amplo Ventures.
Persons: Crosby, Organizations: Crosby Health, Amplo Ventures, Service, , NOMO Ventures, Business
Apriora's tech uses conversational AI to conduct job interviews. The startup, which just graduated from Y Combinator, raised a $2.8 million seed round. We got an exclusive look at the presentation Apriora used to raise its seed funding. AdvertisementJob seekers are already using ChatGPT to prepare for job interviews, and one startup is working to even the playing field by bringing AI tools to hiring managers. Apriora, a startup that uses conversational AI to conduct job interviews, just announced its $2.8 million seed funding round led by 1984 Ventures.
Persons: Y, , Dan Gross Organizations: Service, 1984 Ventures, Pioneer Fund, Business Locations: HOF Capital
Read previewThe Seed 100 and Seed 40 lists are derived from a statistical analysis of investor track records. Incubated by Tribe Capital, Termina is an AI-software platform that powers quantitative due diligence for leading investors around the world. Show intermediate signs of future success with seed investments that consistently receive follow-on investment. Ten percent of all seed investors in scope were women, up from 8% when the first Seed 100 was released in 2021. The result in just one year is the largest-ever rebalancing of how investors allocate seed capital across sectors.
Persons: , We've, We're, OpenAI, Termina, Jake Ellowitz Organizations: Service, Business, Tribe Capital Locations: USA, Canada
download the appSign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. But amid the chaos, there was one solid thing in Partovi's life, one thing he knew he could always put in order: computer code. Related storiesNow, Partovi has reached the top echelon of seed investors, ranking 13th on Business Insider's Seed 100 list. 'Neo Scholars'Through his seed-stage fund Neo, Partovi has amassed a formidable portfolio of early-stage investments, including Ramp, Deel, Vanta, MosaicML, and many more. As these "Neo Scholars," as they're known, graduate or drop out to build startups, Neo backs them with money from its investment fund.
Persons: , Ali Partovi, Saddam Hussein, Partovi's, Hadi, Partovi, Facebook, Uber, There's Erik Goldman, Dropbox, Vanta, There's Ari Steinberg, who's Organizations: Service, Business, Boston University, Sharif University of Technology, Harvard, Microsoft, University, CS, Stanford, Facebook, Airbnb Locations: Tehran, Iran, Iraq, North America, Silicon
That entrepreneurial, technology-focused spirit has driven Underwood to an illustrious career at some of the industry's biggest companies, including Google, X, Slack, and Intel. As she built products at these tech giants, Underwood quietly invested in over 50 startups, including the genetics-testing unicorn Color and the cap-table giant Carta. Underwood began investing while at X, then called Twitter, where she was the company's director of product. Shortly after, #Angels was born, the investment collective cofounded by Underwood, Verrilli, Jana Messerschmidt, Chloe Sladden, Katie Stanton, and Vijaya Gadde. Since 2015, the group has backed over 100 startups, including Forward, Clubhouse, Instacart, Material Security, and Airtable.
Persons: Underwood, she'd, Slack, Jessica Verrilli, who'd, Stewart Butterfield, Cal Henderson, Ev Williams, Jack Dorsey, Verrilli, Jana Messerschmidt, Chloe Sladden, Katie Stanton, Vijaya Gadde, you've, I've, they've Organizations: Amarillo College, Business, Google, Intel, GV, Cue, Twitter, Health, Security, Slack Locations: Amarillo , Texas, Amarillo, Termina, San Francisco
Without better data to understand the health of increasingly stressed waterways, the fight to save these most precious of resources will be ineffective, says Simeon Pieterkosky, co-founder of the technology company Aquaai. The technology could also find a use in the Middle East, a region that is battling water scarcity. Aquaai co-founder and CEO Liane Thompson. Aquaai is currently upgrading its underwater drones and is in discussions with various government agencies about trials to put the newest version to work. There are a smattering of other agencies and companies developing underwater drones for a variety of purposes.
Persons: Simeon Pieterkosky, , Aquaai, Pieterkosky, Liane Thompson, Aquaai Thompson, Thompson, Robert C, Brears, Organizations: CNN, United Arab, Abu Locations: California, Norway, East, North Africa, Thompson, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi’s, Beijing
Lieb, having a background in semiconductors and not server management, reached out to his fellow Y Combinator founders for support. After a year and a half of advising at the accelerator, he's stepping up as a group partner, Y Combinator tells Business Insider exclusively. It was never released, but many of the ideas would later come back in the form of Google Photos. From there, he reached into the Y Combinator alumni network to find other promising upstarts. David Lieb, second from left, speaks to a group of Y Combinator founders.
Persons: David Lieb, Lieb, Alex Polvi, Combinator —, Garry Tan, Jared Friedman, Harj Taggar, Michael Seibel, Sam Altman, it's, Y Combinator, " Lieb, Dan Lieb, Y, Xoogler, Patrick, John Collison's, Mixpanel, Jake Mintz, Forbes, Kevin Systrom, Flock, Andy Huibers, Mary, 72m2YgJZq8 — David Lieb, Ryan Peterson, He's Organizations: Apple, Business, Investors, Google Locations: Cloudkick, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Flexport
By the time he graduated in 2004, Berkowitz signed a lease to open Insomnia's first brick-and-mortar location, near another college campus in Syracuse, New York. Now, with Krispy Kreme looking to sell Insomnia, Berkowitz says he's "grateful for the journey." Seth Berkowitz estimates he spent roughly $150 on baking ingredients to start Insomnia Cookies. "2009 and 2010 [were] some of the hardest years ever at Insomnia Cookies," says Berkowitz, adding: "There wasn't anyone else to do it. 'Insomnia Cookies is a perseverance story'
Persons: Seth Berkowitz, Krispy, " Berkowitz, Berkowitz, he's, Grubhub, Uber, , Jared Barnett —, Barnett Organizations: CNBC, University of Pennsylvania, Syracuse , New York ., College Park , Locations: Syracuse , New York, Champaign , Illinois, College Park , Maryland, Syracuse, New York, Philadelphia
The Santa Clara giant's chips, known as GPUs, became the hottest property of the generative AI boom. In April last year, Zhou and her cofounder Greg Diamos, based in Palo Alto, brought their new startup, Lamini AI, out of stealth. It makes using AI models with GPUs like the H100 and Nvidia's new Blackwell chip, as simple as a plug-and-play system. Fortunately for them, after consulting with Diamos, according to Zhou, AMD was on its way to building a rival system that they would eventually test. it's indiscernible to customers to run Lamini on Nvidia and AMD GPUs," she explained.
Persons: , giant's, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, hasn't, Jensen Huang, Sharon Zhou, Andrew Ng, Zhou, Greg Diamos, Lisa Su Organizations: Service, Nvidia, Business, Harvard, Stanford, Anthropic, Amazon, AMD Locations: Santa, Palo Alto, OpenAI
In January, the legal startup DoNotPay sent more than $1 million to employees and investors in its first-ever dividend. He got the idea from one of his own angels, Sahil Lavingia, whose startup Gumroad issued a dividend last year. The expectation is that when a company sells or goes public, employees will cash in their shares for untold riches. Last year, the digital commerce startup Gumroad paid a dividend of $1 million across employees, investors, and thousands of crowdfunding backers. Cash rewardsBrowder said he wanted to offer a dividend to reward those employees and investors who bet on the startup early.
Persons: Joshua Browder, Browder, DoNotPay, it's, Sahil Lavingia, Josh Seidenfeld, Cooley, Steve Huffman, Spencer Platt, Seidenfeld, Lavingia, Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock, Dylan Field, Scott Belsky, Daniel Dines, Balaji Srinivasan, Cash, there's Organizations: Business, Big Law, Employees, Founders Fund, Adobe Locations: San Francisco
Some VCs are over the Sam Altman hype
  + stars: | 2024-03-26 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com   time to read: +8 min
In late 2023, when OpenAI sought $300 million from investors, CEO Sam Altman chose a different approach. In some corners of this clubby world, over $7 coffee and artisanal cocktails, the meteoric rise of OpenAI and Sam Altman is giving way to an inevitable backlash. "He's a kingmaker," a Silicon Valley startup founder and angel investor who knows Altman. Sam Altman and OpenAI did not respond to requests for comment. A certain somethingMany of the VCs who spoke with BI said Altman has a certain something.
Persons: , OpenAI, Sam Altman, Altman, they'd, I've, Ali Ghodsi, Altman's, Ghodsi, Steve Jobs's, Paul Graham, he's, Sam, Jack Altman, It's, it's, Elon, Alexander the Great, Adam Neumann Organizations: Service, NEA, Business, Altman's, The Washington Post, The, YC, BI, WeWork Locations: Sequoia, Silicon Valley, The, San Francisco
And so last fall, Collin kicked off a search for a new board director, to fill in her knowledge gaps. Now, Collin says she will step down as chief executive of Front after her hunt for a board director took an unexpected turn. She will move into an executive chair role on April 15, when O'Connell takes up the mantle as chief executive, Front tells Business Insider exclusively. Known for her sharp wit and radical candor, Collin started the business out of college in her native France. Advertisement"We're at a scale now where the CEO can't come in and sort of wave the proverbial magic wand and make things happen," said Mohammed Attar, Front's chief product officer.
Persons: Mathilde Collin, Collin, Dan O'Connell, O'Connell, Garry Tan, Paul Buchheit, Jack Altman, Kyle Vogt, Cruise, Jeff Lawson, Mohammed Attar, , Josh Stein, Stein Organizations: Service, Business, Dialpad, Front Locations: San Francisco neighborhood, France, Dialpad
Naro, a German fintech startup, has raised $3 million in pre-seed funding. Cologne-based Naro, founded in 2022, wants to take advantage of the boom in exchange-traded funds — or ETF — products in Europe to offer white-label services to various banks, funds, and brokers. Naro's pre-seed funding round was led by Berlin's La Famiglia alongside Discovery Ventures, plus investment from Robin Capital, Angel Invest, and various angels. Funding will go towards expanding the startup's current team of 10 staff as it looks to partner with potential customers looking to build out products within their existing infrastructure. Naro's business plan subsequently changed from its original slides, you can see a version of its pre-seed pitch deck below:
Persons: Chris Püllen, Püllen, Naro's, Berlin's La Organizations: Business, Trade Republic, Discovery Ventures, Robin Capital, Angel Invest, Credit Suisse Locations: Naro, Cologne, Europe, Germany
He prefers getting to know founders long before they decide to raise money so he can pounce on the right opportunity. Investors, including hedge funds, hurtled term sheets at founders to beat the competition, skipping the usual diligence along the way. Flush with cash, the partners are seeing a flood of hyper-growth startups come to market for funding after a two-year dry spell. The funding blockage is also softening as valuations come back to earth, Costolo said. "Prices are a lot more sensible now," Costolo said, noting the exception of valuations in artificial intelligence.
Persons: Dick Costolo, Costolo, Costolo isn't, Adam Bain, Twitter's, Dario Amodei, Kimberly White, Getty Costolo, they're, Bain, David Fischer Organizations: Twitter, Business, Advisors, Software, Carta, TechCrunch, Google, Nvidia, Fund, Health Locations: Jackson Hole , Wyoming, Detroit
The AI startup, named after inventor Lewis Howard Latimer and affectionately known as "The BlackGPT" is an answer to the bias, lack of cultural competency, and erasure found in popular AI tools like ChatGPT, says Latimer CEO and cofounder John Pasmore. Pasmore said the company has plans to launch about five more products specifically focused on bias detection. The move-fast, break-things energy in AI created an opportunity for Latimer, Pasmore said. This method is baked into Latimer's nascent suite of business offerings set to launch after the release of its API. He is confident that there is "a billion-dollar opportunity" to address bias in incumbent AI offerings for enterprises.
Persons: , Latimer, Lewis Howard Latimer, John Pasmore, Pasmore, Molefi Kete Asante, Brown, it's Latimer, Esther Dyson Organizations: Service, Business, Black, Morgan State, TRS Capital, Syncom Venture Partners Locations: Swiss
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